Friday, February 26, 2010

Novel Notes and Teen News: Your Source for Teen Book Information and Other Teen News 2/26/10

New Books on Order

The order for the following books was just placed today. Get your holds in so you can be the first to read these great books!

Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve a prequel to the Hungry City Chronicles

Rough Magic by Caryl Cude Mullin

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The Line by Teri Hall

Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness the third book in the Chaos Walking series

Little Miss Red by Robin Palmer

Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

And more…

Featured Book of the Week

Dirty Little Secrets by C. J. Omololu

Everybody has secrets, some are just dirtier than others. Lucy does everything she can to keep people away from her home. Inside she has a secret that she will do anything to keep people from discovering. Her mother is a hoarder. She keeps everything—shoes, papers, newspapers, she doesn’t throw anything away. As a result their house is a mess with only little paths for Lucy and her mother to move through. So far, Lucy has managed to keep her secret, but when the unthinkable happens, Lucy must find a way to keep the world from finding out her dirty little secret.

Book Rating Controversy from Barnes and Noble

This week Meg Cabot posted a link on her twitter account to an ongoing discussion about Barnes and Noble’s website, www.bn.com, using ratings from Common Sense Media (http://www.commonsensemedia.org/) on their book listings. Since that time the blogosphere has been discussing the pros and cons of using those ratings on the site. Common Sense Media(CSM)is a great site for finding out about potential concerns in books, it usually evaluates the books fairly and impartially, while listing both pros and cons for the book. It does have its flaws, but it can be a useful tool for people concerned about things they are reading. What has concerned many authors, like Meg Cabot and Sarah Dessen, is that B&N isn’t using the whole entries from CSM. They are only displaying the age rating and the negatives about the books. Check out this article from Publisher’s Weekly: